Indianapolis offers impressive urban planning lessons for Cleveland

Steven Litt/The Plain DealerIt took decades of work to create this vista of urban bliss in Indianapolis, which includes the restored Central Canal flanked by the Indiana State Museum on the right, and Military Park, on the left.Little did I know when I took my daughter Sarah to Indianapolis for a swim meet recently that we were following a path envisioned by local city planners decades ago.

Back in the 1970s, civic leaders including then-mayor Richard Lugar, now a U.S. Senator from Indiana, articulated a vision that called for the creation of amateur sports venues, a large public university and a riverfront park.

Aided by the State of Indiana, the stupendously wealthy Lilly Endowment and the unification of city and county governments in 1970 under the "Unigov" system, the city embarked on a quest to turn "Indiana-no-place" into a great Midwestern city.

Whether Indianapolis has succeeded completely is open to debate. But its accomplishments are undeniably impressive.

Facilities on campus include the world-class Natatorium, a soaring cathedral of swimming, and a track and soccer stadium built to house the Pan-Am Games in the 1987.

Steven Litt/The Plain DealerThe new Campus Center at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, IUPUI, has created a new center of gravity on the sprawling campus west of downtown Indianapolis.Located right next to the university is the national headquarters and Hall of Champions of the NCAA, both designed by architect Michael Graves, a famous Indianapolis native. This isn't far from Lucas Oil Stadium, which just hosted the Men's Final Four tournament in college basketball.

Just to the west of these locations, the state turned a former meatpacking and industrial district on both sides of the White River into the 250-acre White River State Park. The park features waterfront promenades and the Indianapolis Zoo, which overlook the wide, shallow White River, a tributary of the Ohio.

Over the years, the city also built a large and still growing downtown convention center and a system of overhead walkways linking the facility to a downtown shopping mall and a constellation of hotels.

Chris Gahl, associate director of communications for the Convention & Visitors Association said that the city will soon have 12 hotels with 4,700 rooms connected to the convention center, a year-round selling point for the convention business.

Steven Litt/The Plain DealerThe Indianapolis Museum of Art added a glassy new entrance lobby as part of a $74 million expansion completed in 2006.Among other reasons to visit this summer, the art museum on June 20 will open a 100-acre art park filled with large-scale temporary installations by leading contemporary artists from around the world.

Oh, and I forgot to mention superb outdoor amenities, such as the 1.5 mile Central Canal, a piece of early 19th century infrastructure masterfully refurbished according to designs by the landscape architecture firm of Sasaki Associates of Watertown, Mass.

Take a look at the picture atop this blog. That's a photograph of the Indianapolis skyline from a bridge overlooking a portion of the canal.

To the right is the north fa ade of the Indiana State Museum, an excellent institution with exhibits that evoke a strong sense of Indiana history and culture.

Outside the frame to the left is Military Park, which constitutes a portion of White River State Park, and which sits between the IUPUI campus and downtown, which lies just to the east.

On day with decent weather, you'll see scores of city residents jogging up and down the canal, pedaling a three-seat surrey or taking a Venetian-style gondola ride on the water.

Steven Litt/The Plain DealerThe Eiteljorg Museum, left, sits on land that's part of White River State Park, just north of a new J.W. Marriott hotel tower. Today, when you visit Indianapolis, you see the fruit of decades of consistent effort in the pursuit of a vision that has turned Midwestern city with a reputation for blandness into a showcase of city planning and urban design.

Those efforts include a recent, $450,000 project to scrape 167 truckloads of muck out of the canal, which was nearly full of silt and algae a few years ago, according to Bob Whitt, director of the state park.

The canal, which I gather had become nearly an eyesore, now looks so well-maintained it may as well be new. In comparison, the old Lock 1 of the Ohio & Erie Canal on Columbus Road Peninsula is a particular point of shame for Cleveland. It's a muddy, weed-filled ditch.

There's a lot here for us to learn.

That said, it's possible to criticize Indianapolis for the generic quality of its skyline, composed of dull-looking bank towers that lack individuality and style. Indy has nothing like Cleveland's Terminal Tower, or, for that matter, its Key Tower.

Most downtown streets are one-way, which makes the entire city center more hospitable to fast-moving cars than pedestrians.

By far, most downtown restaurants are chain businesses. The restaurant renaissance that has filled Cleveland neighborhoods with superb, locally owned eateries, apparently has no local equivalent in downtown Indianapolis.

On a busy Friday night, it was impossible to find on-street parking. The place was mobbed. But the familiar logo-signs along the streets gave the downtown the feel of an outdoor food court at a suburban shopping mall.

Steven Litt/The Plain DealerWhere did all the people go? They're inside the winter garden in the central distance, built over a major downtown intersection in Indianapolis. It's connected to the city's overhead walkway system, which some business leaders would like to see reproduced in Cleveland.Couple this with the overhead walkway system, and you've got a city that lacks a certain authenticity in its downtown core. It's strange to be able to traverse a downtown without setting foot on a sidewalk.

On top of all that, city residents with whom I spoke said the city has struggled for years with an under-performing city school district. Robert Barrow, a historian at IUPUI, explained that the city school system, unlike local government, did not unify with the county.

"Lugar and others realized," Barrow said, "that getting Unigov through was going to be a push, and one of the things that could stop it would be unifying the school district, so they didn't make an attempt."

Obviously, Indianapolis still faces major challenges. But on a beautiful spring weekend, it definitely presented a visitor with some unexpectedly impressive vistas -- and some very good reasons to return.

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